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By Root 1206 0

the first six months of the war they ceased to carry swords, British infantry officers were still easily identified by German snipers from their Sam Browne belts of polished leather and swagger sticks or pistols. It was also young officers who flew the rickety fighter aircraft that were lost to crashes as well as German fire. By 1917, a British fighter pilot arriving at the front had an average life expectancy of less than three months.

Up until now, those who questioned whether the war was worth the human cost had almost all come from the left end of the political spectrum. But as 1917 approached its close, such a voice unexpectedly rang out from the highest reaches of the country's hierarchy. Lord Lansdowne, a great landowner, former viceroy of India and secretary for war, had as foreign secretary years earlier forged the understanding with France that virtually ensured Britain's participation in the war. Early in the fighting he had lost a son. His doubts about battling to an unconditional victory began after the Somme. Very much a man of his class, he was particularly appalled by the number of British officers slain. "We are slowly but surely killing off the best of the male population of these islands...," he had written to Asquith, then prime minister. "Generations will have to come and go before the country recovers from the loss."

His misgivings only grew, and Passchendaele made him decide to go public. After the shocked Times refused to publish it, an open letter from him appeared in the Daily Telegraph on November 29, 1917. "We are not going to lose this War," Lansdowne wrote, "but its prolongation will spell ruin for the civilised world, and an infinite addition to the load of human suffering which already weighs upon it." He prophetically sensed something about the future the great conflict was leading to: "Just as this war has been more dreadful than any war in history, so, we may be sure, would the next war be even more dreadful than this. The prostitution of science for purposes of pure destruction is not likely to stop short." He then laid out some proposals for a negotiated peace, including future compulsory arbitration of international disputes. Lansdowne was privy to government intelligence reports that many influential Germans and Austrians favored negotiations. He believed that Lloyd George's rhetoric about a "knock-out blow" only provided ammunition to German die-hards determined to fight to the bitter end. The Allies should strengthen the hand of "the peace party in Germany," he wrote, by offering assurances that they "do not desire the annihilation of Germany as a Great Power."

Attacked by many former colleagues and by right-wing patriots, Lansdowne was, to his bewilderment, greeted with great warmth by the socialists whom he had always found an anathema. Bertrand Russell praised his courage and, noting the fury toward Lansdowne in the mainstream press, wryly remarked, "Before long, it will probably be discovered that his great aunt was born in Kiel, or that his grandfather was an admirer of Goethe." Kipling thought Lansdowne an "old imbecile" who had taken such a cowardly position only because some woman must have "worked upon" him.

In their confidential reports on the public mood, undercover intelligence agents began speaking darkly of "Lansdownism." Many soldiers, however, wrote to Lansdowne congratulating him on his bravery. But he represented no mass of followers and sparked no new peace movement. Indeed, not long after his letter appeared, Britain and France issued a hard-line declaration explicitly shutting the door on any negotiations, something that decisively undermined moderates hoping to gain influence in Germany. And by now there was another barrier to any chance of a compromise peace: the British and French governments were counting on the millions of fresh troops promised by the United States to at last bring about an Allied victory.

Margaret Hobhouse, still campaigning for the release of her son, managed to get 26 bishops and more than 200 other clergymen to sign a statement